Finally mastered the Glo Ball pattern

[Seth]

I was tying up some flies tonight for my trip to Maramec Springs tomorrow and I started tying a few glo balls. Instead of just wrapping the thread over the middle of the yarn, I made a figure 8 around the top and bottom pieces of yarn and wallah....a perfectly round, plush egg appeared after I trimmed the yarn.

[Greg]

I've had trouble with glo ball patterns too. They look easy but they are really not. I still can't tie a decent one.

Greg

[Mikey]

seth - can ya go into greater detail on your technique? mine are just a ball of fluff with a split in the middle. all glo and no ball..

mikey

[Seth]

I tie in four pieces of egg yarn, two on bottom and two on top of the hook. Then I make 3 or 4 wraps around all four strands and tighten them as much as possible to the hook. Afterward, I pull the ends of the top two pieces up and the bottom two pieces down and make 3 or 4 figure 8 patterns in between the strands on top and on bottom of the hook. Once I finish the figure 8 step, I tie off the thread and trim the fly to shape.

Doing the figure 8 between the top and bottom strands is the key for me to get good evenly round glo balls.

I will try to post a picture of what I mean if you still don't understand what I am saying.

[Thom]

Mikey:

One of the tricks to getting good shaped round balls that aren't fuzzy (whoops I hope everyone knows that the subject is glo balls) Is:

1. Having good sharp sizzors when you cut.

2. Make the cut quickly and as straight across (perpendictular) to the yarn as possible. Sometimes the temptation is to cut slowly and carefully. Wrong! A quick snap of SHARP SIZZORS will produce a better round ball.

I don't know if you have tried Mcfly yarn. It is more forgiving and tends to cover up any fuzziness. BTW I have had good results with glo balls that I have tied when I first started tying that are not exactly perfectly round and a little fuzzy. I think as long as the size is right the astetics are mostly for the fishermen than the fish. I say this because I seem to have good success with glo balls that I have fished and have gotten really beat up. Not having another the same color I left them on and sometimes the bite is even better. Go figure?

If you continue to have problems with getting a round shape they do sell a sizzor that has a round blade for trimming. If you get the technique down you won't need them though.

[crappiefisherman]

what you talkin bout Willis?????????

[Seth]

My scissors are pretty dull and i can't make a single fast cut like I would like to do. I always end up having to trim the fly up a little bit afterwards to get a good round shape.

Also, I've caught plenty of trout on my less than perfect globals. After you catch a few fish, a global will be getting worn out anyhow and won't have that perfect shape.

[Mikey]

Thanks for the infor Seth. I'll try it that way tonight and see what it looks like. It's more complicated than the other methods but if it produces results then great!

Oh yea, and for the heckuvit, here is a video I stumbled across of a guy tying a glo bug in 30 seconds. Without using the amazing globug dispenser tool thingie...

He also uses the figure 8 to lock the material in place...

Mikey

[ckjacks]

Good video.